Ezmyrelda

April 07, 2016

Reading time ~17 minutes

RE: Normalizing MENTAL ILLNESS

Your video is hilarious. First for the absurd idea that you are interested in helping people by telling them your version of the truth when it’s quite plain to see that people not fitting into your idea of mental health makes you feel uncomfortable. You cherry pick scientific facts by using as a source for your proof a person who most certainly has their world view locked in at least 40 years ago.

Let’s talk about facts though. Facts as we see them are dependent upon our current understanding of things. Genes as we understand them can not be changed using the current technology in this manner. That is true enough. To say though that the use of XX and XY genes is the only determining factor would be literal erasure of human lives. Intersex people exist. To imply that humans exist as a perfect binary and there are no reasons scientifically that a person would want to transition is limited and ignorant thinking. To imply that something is a mental health disorder because it doesn’t fit into your world view is asinine.

You begin by highlight extreme outliers in neuro-divergence. Comparing disparate situations, backgrounds, and other extenuating issues does not lend your point credence. Also, you misstepped when you included Stephanie as a “brave strong independent” woman. She is the textbook example of a trans person who has social and personal issues and trauma in her past. She might be an ageplayer, I’m disinclined to judge a person’s lifestyle in that manner. What I would judge her on is abandonment of her family and refusal to address her responsibilities as an adult. Trans people are not free from actual mental health issues or trauma.

Then you go on to try to sneak in the dear old “cutting it off” trope and gloss over it by adding “or change theirs”. This is the horrifying sticking point for people who aren’t transgender. The idea that anybody might do harm to something people base their own subconscious ideas of gender on. It’s quite unthinkable for people who are insecure about their own presentation of gender and put a lot of stock into the idea that they are respected because of their presentation or not as the case may be. In this you are perpetuating a myth that actually does not help any of us, but I will get to that shortly. To put it succinctly, not all trans people want surgery performed on their genitalia.

Then you try to describe how there can be no community in being transgender. This is extremely historically inaccurate. Specifically because, after a certain point there was no community for trans people but themselves. There were trans people in pre biblical times who had a place in their society as people who were just as important to their community as anybody else. In India Hijras exist. Native americans refer to two spirited people. In one case they are both ostracized and revered, and in the other they were well respected and often times community religious leaders.

In the same area you attempt to paint transgender people as a one dimensional identity. It is not an identity. It is an aspect of peoples many faceted lives. It is not a lifestyle any more than being a male is for you.

You use the term “Mental Illness” as if you actually understand the weight, nuance, or definition of those words. The interesting thing about the word Mental in the term is that the understanding of another person’s feelings, or ideas is couched in their own perspective. People can make educated guesses but they often can’t empathize with the way something might feel if it is completely foreign to them. It’s like a person who suggests to a clinically depressed person that they should just cheer up. In some cases people can be completely unhinged from reality believing that impossible things are true. At the same time other people use their own perception of reality to believe or disbelieve things that make them feel better about themselves based upon the limited data, and their own VERY limited understanding of that data.

Illness is a simpler word to parse but it could mean any number of things based upon context.

You use as a point of proof a Dr who believes that being transgender is a disorder of assumption while ignoring the assumptions that he himself make. Specifically, that ones genitals define precisely and narrowly how one perceives, feels, and expresses gender. Or again, that human beings fall into a rigid sexual binary with nothing in between.

Dr. Mc Hugh may believe transgender people have a mental illness that requires “understanding, treatment, and prevention” but what he really means is understanding as he perceives it, treatment that is in line with his personal biases, and prevention by ignoring facts and studies that don’t fit his beliefs.

You simply cannot prevent evolution or the variables of everything in life, nor can you prevent the checks and balances in biological reproduction.

Dr. McHugh uses as evidence something that nearly all parents understand. Children use playing with gender presentation to learn what works for them and then discard it when it is no longer useful to their identities. The 20-30% left nicely coincide with the percentage of people who may in fact be transgender.

Dr. McHughes also uses a study that does not take into effect all the other factors that are likely contributing to suicidal thoughts. Unrefined surgeries, primitive hormone replacement meds or routines, not to mention the highest contributing factor to transgender peoples anxiety and depression. A society that not only wants to erase them, but ostracize, mock, and murder them. While they continue to make up paranoid ideas about how transgender women want to trick them into bed or emasculate them by flirting.

Saying that a group of people with high instances of mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity did not have their issues completely resolved after sex reassignment does not prove that it or their being transgender was the entire cause of their high rates of morality, suicidal behavior, or psychiatric morbidity. Because of the afore mentioned reasons (imperfect surgeries, inexpert hormone replacement therapies, and a callous insensitive, apathetic society) it is unsurprising that sex reassignment does not fix every gender dysphoria issue. Neither does lack of housing, or employment but you would be hard pressed to find where scientists factor these issues into the big picture.

Your suggestion of Pimozide based on a study of a “cross dressing man” highlights your weak research, ignorant ideas, and subconscious desire for trans people to go just go away. It is an antipsychotic. You don’t actually want people to feel well, you want them to be so doped up they lack the interest or ability to bother with their gender dysphoria because of all the other side effects they have to contend with. I suggest you go look up the wikipedia entry for it, particularly the side effects. Then consider whether you would want to put something in your body that metabolizes to a hormone or a pharmaceutical that has had a comparatively brief testing phase and is commonly prescribed for tics and tourettes.

You then suggest this issue is “clear enough to a laymen”. I’m really astounded, That you would suggest that a complex issue is clear to people who haven’t studied it because they view it in terms of their own assumptions, biases, and prejudices. This is LITERALLY as absurd as suggesting that astrophysics should be clear to the layperson because they have watched a science fiction movie.

The real controversy as I see it is people such as you who would couch their bigotry, bias, assumption, and ignorance in the name of education and compassion while having the gall to suggest that people who are actually doing their part to educate the masses are proselytizing about other peoples “choice” to live as “a transgender”. Which is what? Putting on clothes, living in a home, being gainfully employed? People don’t choose a life of poverty, mockery, depression, and murder. People do put on clothes. The nature of those clothes doesn’t require people to take personally what a person does with their life or how they want, or need their body to look like.

The affliction isn’t with transgender people who would simply like to live their lives as they see fit. It’s with people who are so insecure about themselves that they feel the need to create an issue with people who are different than them. If you feel the need to fit into narrow definitions created by other insecure people that is your issue. It shouldn’t have to be transgender peoples.

Your point about the Olympics has no relevance either scientifically or anecdotally unless the olympics are going to return to greased naked wrestling. Even then I’m disinclined to think it will make a difference.

Your point about transgender people possibly having “mental deficiencies” once again highlights your obvious bias. It’s unthinkable for your to believe for even a second that transgender people are more intelligent and capable than you. You are probably completely unaware of all the advancements to science and culture that trans people have contributed throughout human history.

Your inclusion of Jazz Jennings into your sad expose is quite pathetic. You ignore the obvious happiness that is in their life because they are allowed to be themselves while misgendering them at every opportunity. You then suggest that more children will want to “be special snowflakes” while giving no proof to back up your assertions.

The reference to The American College of Pediatricians temporary statement is an interesting inclusion. The quote given highlights societies imperative on sex and procreation as the most important factor. People who cannot breed must be impersonating the gender they are performing. penis = male, that goes into a vagina which = female and that makes a baby which satisfies the majorities need for simplicity and neatness. To impersonate you must try to convince others of something. Trans peoples highest priority is not to “pass” but feel comfortable in the body they were given.

Facts not Ideology determine reality. Pithy as this nugget you latched on to is; it is vague and self congratulatory. Facts are only as true as the current PROVEN science. Biases espoused by a medical industry that routinely operates on intersex children without their permission and conflates terms does not inspire confidence in their ideology. Finally reality will always be subjective. People once thought that the geocentric model was reality. There are STILL people who refuse to do the research required into even mildly acquainting themselves with such subjects.

Human reproduction is a binary biological objective. Gender is a performance both imposed by society and expressed as a part of our individuality. Genitalia is something that may or may not coincide with our brain chemistry or natural hormonal balance. The problem is that biologically speaking, we are too successful. If LGBT people were erased from existence the human race would populate itself into annihilation. Even with birth control we are still attempting to do just that.

“XX” and “XY” are genetic markers not of health or lack thereof. Simply markers. They are certainly not the entire determining factor of what hangs or doesn’t between a person’s legs. Neither are they the entire determining factor to defining a person’s endocrine system.

While nobody is born with a gender, neither are people going to magically quit performing gender or subjecting others to their own ideals of what gender is and how it should be performed. The statement “Everyone is born with a biological sex” is questionable because the medical industry hasn’t even normalized the awareness of intersex peoples existence. They routinely perform surgery on individuals who haven’t the ability to give consent to the life altering decisions that they will have to live with. If a person is born with indeterminate primary sexual characteristics who decides what their indeterminacy IS or how that will affect the life of a person?

“A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking.” What gives a person the authority to judge or determine what someone is or is not? If I determine that you are an ignorant asshole, does my determination override your self image or bodily autonomy? If you determine that I am confused does that affect my happiness or my perception of comfort in the body that I was given?

That the The American College of Pediatricians would even mention the idea that trans people or others would consider puberty a disease is a sign of how much ignorance there is concerning the needs of trans people. The “danger” puberty blocking hormones might risk does not outweigh the risk of depression and crippling dysphoria, and suicidal ideation most transgender teens do face. The children that you were so eager to bring up before, who have persisted in their communication of their feelings will by the time they are teenagers find the idea of them developing opposite to their gender identity horrifying and anxiety inducing. For a transgender female teen facial hair is not the gift they were looking forward to. To a transgender male teen, breasts are nothing but a constant reminder of what society wants them to be and what they have never felt like.

The point is not to block puberty but to allow transgender individuals the chance to get the puberty that won’t devastate their well being. Transgender individuals who are untreated for hormone replacement therapy are not getting the treatment for THEIR health that they require.

Parents do not condition their children into believing that “a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful” Parents statistically do their best to condition their children to what they deem “normal”. Children communicate issues or thoughts to their parents without assumptions or biases and persist in them if they feel strongly enough about it. While the vast majority of children do grow out of the gender experimentation stage, a small percentage feel deeply about these issues and bring them up repeatedly with no prior influence.

Child Abuse is forcing a child into Christian “reparative” therapy to “fix” what doesn’t align with the parents ideologies.

The tragic story of Leah Cooper does not prove whether or not they were trans. Indeed if their phrasing is accurate it is likely that they were never trans to begin with. Trans people do not “want” to be the opposite sex, they feel intrinsically that they are. The cases you bring up are isolated and once again work to erase the lives of happy transgender people who feel fulfilled and fully at peace with their decisions.

Surgery should only be looked at as an option for people who have proven their emotional makeup has improved by hormones and presenting full time for a minimum of two years.

Suicide rates among transgender people are astronomical whether or not they have transitioned or not, detransitioned or not. It is a fact. Suicide rates are astronomical for transgender people across demographic borders around the world for a number of reasons. “Detransitioning” does not prove that transition is not the answer. It suggests that despite transition society is overwhelmingly against what allowing trans people to exist without fear would mean for them.

It is no sign of virtue to be emotionally adjusted in a sick society. So, you can blame the suicidal ideations of transgender people on a “mental illness” all you like. It does not and never will erase the apathy, callousness, and murderous intent perpetrated upon us by a society that would rather have us fit into their tiny definitions than broaden their understanding of what it means to be a human being.

The transparency of your fears are repeatedly brought up every time you mention surgery. As if you believe that surgery is the one thing that all of us are dying to have and will magically fix every factor contributing to our gender dysphoria.The point I am trying to make is that while a great many of us would like vaginoplasty we do not conflate our genitalia with our gender. It’s insecure men that put so much reverence into their dicks who exhibit disgust and revulsion with anybody that might not want to have theirs.What you are actually saying is that if YOU lost your dicks you would lose your manhood. So, you turn that into feigned interest in protecting someone with a condition you couldn’t possibly understand.

I personally do not believe in sex reassignment surgery for MYSELF at this time based on current techniques or results. It is a decision I often reconsider due to various factors. I would however never attempt to push my opinions about what is right or not for my body on to another person because I felt I knew what was in their best interest.

Your supposed altruism smacks of insincerity especially when you refer to the surgeries as expensive. Healthcare is great, but only when it’s the healthcare you approve of on your dime right?

What you are doing is literally condoning bigotry by spreading misinformation and lousy research.
The real mental illness that is being spread throughout the globe is being an ignorant prick. But for some reason somebody somewhere decided to hand every ignorant prick a youtube channel.

Unfortunately for simpletons such as yourself people like me exist. I am the resounding refutation to each and every one of your extremely biased and completely insincere attitudes and assumptions about trans people.

My hormones are my lifeline to a sense of well being and mental health. If I was without them for a prolonged period of time I wouldn’t feel depression, I wouldn’t feel suicidal because of gender dysphoria. If I was without my hormones I would feel the rage, the anger, the fury and the frustration that limited my ability to think clearly and be serene for the 25 years following puberty that I wasn’t able to face my condition or even understand it. Transition has been every key and every solution to turning my life from anger and pain to happiness and fulfillment.

You imply by your attitudes that you would take away MY happiness in the name of your idea of protection. I do not need the protection of people such as you. I do not even need your silence about subjects you are woefully uneducated about. I and people like me WILL have our bodily autonomy whether you are apathetic about our lives or disapprove of our needs.

I require no surgery to be happy with what I was given in this life. My gender dysphoria only exhibits itself as much or as little as my genitalia or facial hair force me to be aware of it. Were it to cease getting pinched or being in the wrong position constantly I wouldn’t have an issue with it. If I was free of facial hair I wouldn’t have a continual greasy, scratchy, itchy, irritating facial bane covering my beautifully feminine face. On the opposite end of the spectrum I have adored my blessed tits ever since they started to grow. When I am reminded I have them because I roll over in bed or run down stairs I become giddy with the sense of correctness they bestow upon me.

You would be mistaken if you thought for one moment that I considered myself a victim or is your run of the mill reactionary armchair SJW. I’m am no victim. If I notice a person is scowling at me in an attempt to shame me for living my life as I see fit I will return their scowl with a glare that is fueled by the unbridled righteous indignation of a person who is fiercely living their own truth with no interest in living up to the expectations or standards of another persons.

I am not a social justice warrior. I would never apply that term to myself. I am however a peaceful warrior for social, and ecological justice and awareness. If you threaten me with ignorance I will visit upon you the full intelligence and creativity of a trans person that lives daily the truth of something that you know nothing about.

TL;DR
Your video is pure unfiltered high density bullshit and you are an ignorant prick of the basic variety.

I refuse to link to their video because I do not condone perpetuating ignorance that will be monetized by insensitive and insincere Tossers.